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- Individual Factors
- Weibo Use Pattern Factors
- Informational Weibo Use
Who are Weibo Activists?
Weibo activism behaviors were operationalized into two categories, writing posts and forwarding posts about six issues: environmental issues, food safety, policy related issues, online charity, rights related issues, and corruption and power abuse. The frequency rate is divided into a five-point measurement where one indicates rarely, five indicates all the time and zero means never. The descriptive figures for writing and forwarding on Weibo about these issues are as follows: Figure 3 How often do you post on Weibo about the following issues? As we can see from the chart above, most users rarely wrote on Weibo about environmental issues (47.5 percent), food safety (36.9 percent), policy related issues (35.2 percent), online charity (29.6 percent), rights related issues (35.2 percent), or corruption and power abuse (31.3 percent). In each category, less than 20 percent of people wrote on Weibo about activism issues frequently (with self-rated frequencies of 3 and above). Figure 3 How often do you forward Weibo about the following issues? According to the descriptive figures, there are more people who forward posts than write posts about Weibo activism issues. As we can see from the chart above, users are more willing to forward posts about charity than the other issues (25.1 percent of respondents chose 3 on a 5-point scale). More people choose a frequency of 2 when it comes to how often they would forward food safety issues (25.1 percent) and rights related issues (23.5 percent). These percentages are similar to the percentages who rarely forward food safety issues (20.7 percent) and rights related issues (20.1 percent). More people report that they rarely forward posts about environmental issues (27.4 percent), policy related issues (22.3 percent), corruption and power abuse (20.1 percent), and other people’s personal statuses (26.8 percent). Generally, most respondents forward Weibo posts about activism issues sometimes (self-rated frequency of 2-4). Relatively fewer people report forwarding these issues all the time or rarely. On the other hand, higher percentages of people forward online charity posts more often (25.1 percent of respondents chose frequency of 3). This trend might be due to the fact that online charity is the only form of Weibo activism that is not only tolerated but even encouraged by the state and Weibo websites. However, posts about policy, rights, and corruption and power abuse can be related to sensitive political issues and eventually be censored by an administrator. Overall, there are more people who forward Weibo posts about activism issues than people who write about them, according to the percentage figures above. This finding is consistent with the Weibo atmosphere: most Weibo users write about their personal life, and forward other people’s posts related to Weibo activism. Weibo activists who have first-hand information related to these issues are relatively rare. However, people who often forward Weibo posts about activism issues are also Weibo activists, because 1) Weibo users who often forward these issues are spreading the information to wider audiences so as to promote wider attention to the issue; 2) Weibo allows users to forward a post with their own comments, thus enhancing the forwarded post with the user’s original thoughts. Thus, in this research, Weibo activism was defined as forwarding Weibo posts about activism issues, since it is a better indicator than writing Weibo posts about activism issues.
Hypothesis 2 predicts that Weibo users with higher SES-markers (socio-economic status) are more likely to be Weibo activists. In other words, the hypothesis predicts that Weibo users who have higher educational levels and higher incomes are more likely to be Weibo activists. In order to test this hypothesis, relationships between individual factors, including education, monthly income, and Weibo activism, were tested using Spearman’s correlation. Table 3 Spearman’s correlation between individual factors and forwarded Weibo activism issues
Table 3-8 reports bivariate correlations between education, monthly income, and forwarding Weibo activism posts. As can be seen, no SES-marker variables have a significant relationship with Weibo activism variables. In conclusion, hypothesis 2 (H2) is rejected. Individuals with higher SES-markers are not more inclined to forward Weibo activism posts.
Hypothesis 3 predicts that Weibo user who uses it more frequently are more likely to be Weibo activist. Weibo use frequencies are operationalized in two ways: 1) Hours per week; and 2) Days per week. Table 3 Spearman’s correlation coefficient between Weibo use frequencies and forwarding Weibo posts about activism issues
Table 3-9 reports the bivariate Spearman’s correlation between Weibo use frequencies and forwarding Weibo activism posts. As seen, the number of hours per week spent using Weibo is positively related to most of the Weibo activism variables. The significance levels are all at <.05 level. Only forwarding posts about corruption and power abuse issues was not related to the amount of Weibo use hours per week. Meanwhile, the number of days per week using Weibo is positively associated with all the Weibo activism variables. Thus, it is safe to conclude that more Weibo use is likely to lead to more Weibo activism use, supporting our third hypothesis (H3).
Hypothesis 4 predicts that Weibo users who use it for informational purposes are more likely to be Weibo activists. The dependent variable, informational Weibo use, is operationalized in three ways: 1) using Weibo as a main source of information; 2) using Weibo to get information; and 3) using Weibo to share information with others. Table 3 Spearman’s correlation coefficient between informational Weibo use and forwarded Weibo posts about activism issues
As Table 3-10 shows, all the variables of informational Weibo use are positively related with Weibo activism use at p<.01 level. It shows that Weibo activists are more likely to use Weibo for informational purposes, supporting the fourth hypothesis (H4). Conclusion This section investigated whether SES markers and Weibo use patterns are related to Weibo activism use. The results showed that SES markers are not related to Weibo activism use; however, Weibo use patterns have a positive relationship with forwarding posts about activism issues. Weibo activists are more likely than average users to use Weibo for informational purposes. Thus, hypothesis 4 is supported while hypothesis 3 is not supported. Weibo activism use is a useful framework for advancing analyses of Weibo’s impact in collective action involvement. How does Weibo affect collective action involvement? Is it possible that Weibo activists who often forward activism issue posts are more likely to become involved in collective action? Which factors contribute to collective action involvement? The next section will explore these questions.
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